Jeddah Corniche Circuit

SAUDI ARABIAN GRAND PRIX

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December 15, 2002
Matt Maple stepped into the 2003 Mapes-VO car for the first time last week, only to find to his horror, that he would be the one who suffered the most problems with the new car of all Mapes-VO drivers to date.

After Andrew Turner was told by doctors he shouldn't drive after suffering dizziness due to the long plane flight from Australia, so Maple agreed to drive the 30 laps for the day. Not only did he suffer a transmission failure on lap 5 of his day, but in the evening of the session, while trying to set his best lap, he suffered a loss of fuel pressure resulting in coasting over the line, a blown engine followed.

"It was a productive day, apart from so much s**t went wrong, we didnt really learn much. We were testing reliability so I was pushing the car to its limits. We ended up running at just under 800BHP instead of the 820 that the engine allowed, this was a problem as it makes the car look slower [best lap of only 1.10.7] but we know this isnt the case, today was a learning curve for myself and the team and I think we got through it well."